Anyone who tells you you are only safe among people exactly like you is a fascistic liar.
My rapist was nonbinary and bi. My deeply Lutheran grandma was the first person to fully accept me as trans in my primarily liberal athiestic/agnostic family. Years ago my social life was ruined by another trans masculine person who intentionally destroyed all of my close friendships. One of my current closest friends is a cishet guy who has a friend group that is almost entirely populated of queer people because a bunch of his friends have come out around him since high school.
Fascists want you scared and isolated and alone. The way to combat that is to trust other people. And yeah. Trusting other people is vulnerable and can lead to hurt, but sometimes the people you trust blindly based on identity will be the ones who hurt you the most and the ones you dismiss blindly based on identity will be the ones who can keep you the safest.
yes, all criminals. the moment you say “except X criminal” is the moment that people will try to convict their opponents as having committed X crime.
it’s the same thing as what’s going on right now with people equating drag to some sort of child exploitation. “but the children!!” they wail, and people listen because oh, if drag is harming children, then drag MUST be BAD, so we HAVE TO BAN DRAG.
do you understand what i’m saying? you can’t take away the rights of any category of criminal, because suddenly that category will be overflowing with people who totally 100% definitely committed that horrible crime.
Just to look at this from one step further back, let's accept the premise. Let's imagine that there is a type of crime that is 1) horrible evil irredeemable universally-agreed-upon bad, and 2) could somehow be prosecuted with 100% accuracy and 0% bias. Yes, even then, those criminals deserve a right to vote.
Do you they're going to like vote themselves out of jail? Vote to make murder legal? What exactly are you afraid of.
Realistically they'll just... vote just like anyone else. They'll help elect city councilmembers they think will better their hometowns, and presidents they think will best serve the country. They might even vote in their own interests! To reform prisons, fund rehabilitation programs, and outlaw predatory practices by telecoms. Are you saying you don't want any of those things?
And even if there were one of those super-duper-unambiguously-evil totally misanthropic death-row convicts, who's scheduled to be execute the very next day and just wants to sow chaos and watch the outside world burn however they can... what's the worst they could do, vote republican?
Taking people's rights away isn't bad because it might happen to someone you like, it's because taking people's rights away is bad.
Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you.
AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.
Here are the important details:
We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner.
We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.
To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.
For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc.
Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.
If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.
Automattic will sign a contract with OpenAI for Midjourney to learn off of Tumblr and Wordpress
Hello! Automattic, Tumblr's parent company, will sign a contract with OpenAI and Midjourney so Midjourney can learn off of Tumblr's and WordPress' art and other user data. :) (The full text of this article is copy/pasted in the cut below). You can opt out! but I truly cannot imagine a more idiotic or out of touch decision on the part of Tumblr's CEO.
First thing's first: When/if this goes live, opt out of this immediately. Do this even if you're not an artist. The more people opt out, the less valuable this contract is to Midjourney. in an ideal world, literally all of the active users would opt out, but if we can even get to 50% that's pretty delicious.
Second: Contact Tumblr Support. It's vital that you do this politely. Tumblr staff is not responsible for this decision and the point of doing this is to show the userbase's unwillingness to be involved in this, not harangue Tumblr staff. (Seriously, stop haranguing Tumblr staff). Here's a script:
Hi, I'm writing in to express my disappointment in Automattic's pending contract with OpenAI to sell user data. Midjourney is already embroiled in copyright lawsuits, and it is not possible to train it without compromising copyright, including violating the IP of artists on this site. I strongly protest this contract and will opt out if it goes live. Depending on the privacy terms around what user data is sold to OpenAI and why, it is possible I will leave the platform entirely. Thank you for your time.
Third: Download Glaze and start poisoning them prompts, my friends
Fourth: Stare into the middle distance for a second with me because holy fucking shit? How stupid can one decision be?
Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals.
The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.
The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent.
Gage wrote:
“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:
private posts on public blogs
posts on deleted or suspended blogs
unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered)
private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)
posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know)
content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”
Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.
Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”
404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”
Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.
News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”
Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media.
Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.
OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment.
"this cannibal murder game has incest in it and that makes me uncomfortable" oh my oh no! we must fix this, we wouldn't want the horror game to freak you our or make you uncomfortable or anything!! that's not what horror is about!! like the cannibalism is fine but the incest? 🤢cant have such gross illegal things in this horror game!
Bro, I haven't even played the game but took one look at the trailer and game art and instinctively knew it had incest in it. Some people will look at this description and think 'oh they must be a lil mean to each other';
'Cannibalism and codependency!
Caught in an extremely toxic sibling relationship, our awful heroes must survive starvation,'
That's another thing that's so wild, like it's pretty obvious on the tin there's some fuckery going on - but these same people make a habit of ignoring warnings and then throwing a hissy fit anyways. Couldn't be that the game isn't meant for them. Everything needs to cater to them, and all depiction is equal to endorsement. Unless its violence and murder then that's just fine, eat as many leftover corpses from satanic rituals as you want, BUT SIBLINGS FUCKING? you cant do that in fiction I'm calling the police and this is a completely normal thought process to have!!!
Weirdly enough I'd almost respect it more if they actually also had an issue with the murder and cannibalism! At least they'd be like ethically consistent in their moral pearl clutching, but alas.
Honestly wish I could get these folks into a mandatory touch grass initative or something. It's just fiction, my god, we truly out here living in one of the worst timelines, no doubt.
"this cannibal murder game has incest in it and that makes me uncomfortable" oh my oh no! we must fix this, we wouldn't want the horror game to freak you our or make you uncomfortable or anything!! that's not what horror is about!! like the cannibalism is fine but the incest? 🤢cant have such gross illegal things in this horror game!
Bro, I haven't even played the game but took one look at the trailer and game art and instinctively knew it had incest in it. Some people will look at this description and think 'oh they must be a lil mean to each other';
'Cannibalism and codependency!
Caught in an extremely toxic sibling relationship, our awful heroes must survive starvation,'
son *puts a hand on your shoulder* son sometimes *puts another hand on your shoulder* Son sometimes things are *puts another hand on your shoulder* son you just gotta *puts another hand on your shoulder* son
its so important to me that artists remember they can fuck around. you never have to use tools as intended. you can always skip steps. you dont have to be organized. you dont have to be neat. you can put as little effort as you want into the parts of the process you dont find fun. maybe if youre making products you cant do these things but on your own time you can do literally actually whatever the hell. it doesnt matter how long you spend on it youve made art and its complete when you decide to quit. yee haw
